That could partly explain the racial divide on issues like the George Zimmerman trial. After he was found not guilty of murdering unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, a Pew Research Center poll found that 86 percent of African-Americans expressed dissatisfaction with the verdict, compared to just 30 percent of whites.

The same poll found that 78 percent of blacks said that the case should spur a conversation about race. Only 28 percent of whites agreed, with 60 percent of them saying that the issue of race was getting too much attention.

A recent study by the American Sociological Review found that while America's neighborhoods are more diverse than ever, most of the people moving to those diverse neighborhoods haven't been white and black families. The Reuters poll backed that finding, noting that Latinos were the most likely to have friends and marry outside of their own race.

"There has been some progress, but whites and blacks in particular still tend to live in separate neighborhoods," Camille Zubrinsky Charles, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, told NBC News.